{"id":2192,"date":"2013-06-30T20:11:57","date_gmt":"2013-06-30T19:11:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/?p=2192"},"modified":"2026-05-25T04:53:51","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T03:53:51","slug":"two-flat-days-in-the-mountains-and-one-on-the-top","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/2013\/06\/30\/two-flat-days-in-the-mountains-and-one-on-the-top\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Flat Days In The Mountains And One On The Top"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Eileen
Eileen at Holiday Camping near Leutasch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Friday was a flat day.\u00a0 We spent most of our time hanging around in Eileen while the weather just couldn\u2019t make its mind up.\u00a0 Rodney went for a short walk in between showers, while I caught up on some emails, then after lunch we took our books and beach towels over to the campsite\u2019s beautiful, heated, indoor pool for a bit of a swim and some rest and relaxation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Rodney
Rodney in the blue pool<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

For dinner Rodney cooked up a chunk of steak and veggies and then, to burn it off, we went for a lovely evening stroll outside the campsite.\u00a0 We took the path beside the glacial river and found ourselves in a little bit of a paradise.\u00a0 There were abundant wildflowers of numerous varieties on both sides of the pathway, a fisherman was casting his line out as he walked down stream in his waders and only the cows broke the silence with their bells clanging as they munched on the damp grass.\u00a0 Back at the campsite we had a quick drink at the bar before bed; tomorrow we will move closer to Innsbruck and spend a day in the city on Sunday.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Fisherman
Fisherman in the Leutaschtal Valley<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"A
A meadow in the Leutaschtal Valley<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

We left our super-duper, five-star campsite early on Saturday and then everything seemed to go pear shaped. A diversion in the next village, that gave no directions or sign posting, had us a bit lost for a while.\u00a0 We had to double back in Seefeld to find a supermarket; realising that shops would be probably be closed on Saturday afternoon and all day on Sunday.\u00a0 The girls in the tourist office at Seefeld directed me to the post office when we couldn\u2019t find any sign of it and then it turned out to be shut on Saturday morning, despite them telling me it would be open, humph.<\/p>\n

We were trying to get to Camping Natterer See at Natters and the GPS got us to the previous village of G\u00f6tzens, only 2.4 kms away from the campsite.\u00a0 However we came to a complete standstill in that village when a very slowly moving religious procession had the village roads closed to traffic.\u00a0 The police finally opened up a road leading west, but we needed to head east, we drove through a couple more villages that we didn\u2019t want to go to, but there were no roads around that would lead us to Natters.\u00a0 We turned around and tried to get through G\u00f6tzens again, but just got directed back to where we had come from.\u00a0 In fact we ended up on the road to Innsbruck and then got a bit lost in the city too.\u00a0 Sign posting for any direction was abysmal and the GPS just wanted us to head back to G\u00f6tzens. \u00a0We decided to try heading slightly south out of Innsbuck; we had now increased our distance to 13kms from the campsite and we managed to approach Natters from the opposite side.\u00a0 An hour and a quarter later we finally arrived and although the campsite looked very nice, it seemed to be miles from anywhere and we doubted that any bus service would run in to Innsbruck from there on a Sunday.<\/p>\n

Because of all the difficulties and frustrations of the whole morning and feeling like we\u2019d already seen a lot of Innsbruck, we both felt that we had lost all interest in the area.\u00a0 The weather was closing in again as we drove back out to the main road and we continued east to Zell am Ziller.\u00a0 We drove past Camping Hell; with the day we were having we didn\u2019t want to chance that one, but when we pulled in to Campingdorf Hofer, they were closed for lunch.\u00a0 \u00a0We should have expected that one.\u00a0 So we drove further up the valley through Mayrhofen to Finkenberg.\u00a0 We parked in the carpark for the Finkenberg Gondola and ate our lunch with fantastic views back down the Zillertal valley.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"The
The view towards Finkenberg (taken the next day from the top)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Back down at Mayrhofen we had a bit of a wander around, picked up some maps of walks in the area and when the rain started again, we stopped for drinks and cake in the Pavilion Caf\u00e9.\u00a0 When the rain got even heavier, we dashed back to Eileen and drove to Camping Mayrhofen which turned out to be very nice and we settled in while the rain continued to fall most of the evening and through the night.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"My
My bunch of wildflowers for Eileen<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

On Sunday morning I dashed to the shower block in my raincoat, but when I returned to Eileen the sun had come out and the sky was blue.\u00a0 So at 10am with rucksacks packed with food and layers of warm and wet-weather gear, we strode down to the Penkenbahn Gondola in the centre of Mayhofen.\u00a0 By 10:45am we were standing on a high ridge looking down on the beautiful Zillertal valley and enjoying the view of snow-capped mountains all around us.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Laura
Laura at the top of Knorren above Mayrhofen<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"The
The mountains on the opposite side of the Zillertal Valley<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

After a good two and a half hours walking, we sat down for typical Austrian meals in the Penkentenne Bergrestaurant at 2,095 metres above sea level.\u00a0 Rodney polished off his big wiener schnitzel, but I couldn\u2019t eat all of my huge plate of beef goulash and dumplings….. even after all the hiking.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Cows,
Cows, bells and mountains<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

On the way back, we passed yet more clanging cows and it made me wonder if any Tyrolean cow has ever worked out that if she stood very still, the ringing in the ears would stop?\u00a0 And, if they all stood very still together, they might get a bit of peace and quiet.\u00a0 Come to think of it, what happens at night?\u00a0 Do they all go to sleep at the same time, or is there always one annoying cow who keeps all the others awake with a little late-night clanging?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"Riding<\/dt>\n
Riding the gondola back down to Mayrhofen<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

It took us another hour to walk downhill to the gondola top station and catch a ride back down to Mayrhofen for ice creams and the walk back to the campsite.\u00a0 It was a lovely day up in the mountains and although most of the day turned out to be rather cloudy, no rain fell and the temperatures seem to be rising a bit.\u00a0 Fingers crossed, when we move further east tomorrow the weather might continue to improve\u2026\u2026. please?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Mountain
Mountain tops above Mayrhofen<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Friday was a flat day.\u00a0 We spent most of our time hanging around in Eileen while the weather just couldn\u2019t make its mind up.\u00a0 Rodney went for a short walk in between showers, while I caught up on some emails, then after lunch we took our books and beach towels over to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2198,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2192"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8383,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2192\/revisions\/8383"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}